Kevin Koch has an article where he talks about the difference between Secondary Action and Secondary Motion. (Click HERE to read it)
I feel that Secondary Action is something lacking from most student work.
It is not enough to have the characters delivering their lines!
Secondary Action can tell the audience a lot about who your character is.
I was reading the Spungella blog and I found a post where he is sharing an email that he wrote giving some advice on weight in animation:
About the weight. … [there's] not a trick per se to fix it, but you can pay attention to the translation specifically. Any movement that’s going up/down or sideways has to have a slow part going into something faster or vice versa.
If you have even timing and even movement it will look robotic and/or floaty.
If someone goes up, then he/she/it has to activate the muscles and fight gravity, so the up movement will be slow at the beginning, but increase over time.
Same during a down movement. The down movement of the character will start slowly and increase as it goes down since gravity comes into play.
For sideways movement think of how the character is moving and where it is going. If the character is just standing there facing you and taking a sidestep screen left for instance, then the screen right leg is doing the pushing. So those muscles have to fire up first and then the character can push off in order to move. The spacing will start close together and get wider over time.
If a character is moving fast or jumping in one direction and is then doing a direction change you have to think about how the body has to deal with the momentum.
Now, depending on the style, those ease ins/outs can happen over ten or more frames or over one or two. I’m just talking about the general idea or principle. Always be aware of the style (and to a point also the physical nature of the character (ant vs. elephant for instance).
Hope this helps!
Cheers
JD
This may sound obvious but it is good advice that we should keep in mind while animating.
Kevin Koch has an interesting article on his website about variety being the spice of life:
Here is an excerpt of the post:
This is consistent with what most of us believe — Variety is the spice of life. We consciously crave variety — at least we think we do. Most of us long to visit exotic places when we’re daydreaming, but when vacation time comes, we’re usually happier to just chill out in our back yards, or travel an hour away to the beach or a favorite resort community. The relatively new field of Happiness Research bears this out. Research shows that more variety doesn’t make us happy, and that we’re actually happiest with what is familiar.
You can read the whole article HERE
Brendan Body has two articles on his website about acting.
The first heard about subtext when I was studying at Animation Mentor.
I also think that Shawn Kelly talked about subtext in his Animation Tips and Tricks a while ago.
Enjoy
Mark Kennedy has two posts in his website about Basic Staging Principles.
I think that being one of the 12 principles of animation, Staging is one of the most overlooked.
It is a tricky and elusive concept yet really important in storytelling:
Enjoy!
DJ Nicke from animationsalvation posted this video sharing some great workflow tips.
The video is called Double Your Animation Output.
I agree with most of the things that he says but I approach parts of the process in a slightly different way.
In any case it is worth checking.
Found @ Martin K´s
Brendan Body has a great lecture on Bouncing Balls on his site. It is great to see someone breaking up the process as well as applying the bouncing ball concept to more complex animations.
Check the full lecture HERE
Note: This one is also a bit old but still pure gold!
I know that I am a little late on this one but it is better later than never, right? Anyway, it looks like Plastic Animation Paper has been released for free!
I remember trying this application when I was a student of Animation Mentor.
It is great when it comes to planning and trying different ideas.
Brendan Body has two interesting posts about acting in his blog:
Both things are really important in animation but it is tricky to get them right.
Good stuff! Go check it out!
Mike from Rainplace has two interesting posts about phrasing in animation. He explains how he approaches the phrasing of a shot. It always inspires me to see how other people approach their shots. The blog is full of great insights about animation and workflow so make sure to check it out.
Anyway, here are the articles on phrasing:
Enjoy
